TDP rethinks alliance with BJP

Feeling let down by BJP’s firm stand on separate Telangana despite the ruckus in Parliament on Thursday, Telugu Desam leadership is having second thoughts over taking forward its relationship with the saffron party.

Telugu Desam president N. Chandrababu Naidu spent much of his four-day stay in Delhi meeting the top leaders of BJP -- L. K. Advani, Sushma Swaraj, Rajnath Singh and Arun Jaitley -- and convincing them to toe his party’s line of “equal justice” to people of Telangana and Seemandhra. TDP sources said he made this as a condition for a possible alliance in the coming general elections arguing that it would be win-win situation for both parties in the two regions. After Thursday’s episode in Parliament and pressure mounting from party’s leadership in Telangana, the BJP appeared to be caught in a dilemma.

Mr. Singh, Ms. Sushma Swaraj and Mr. Jaitley told a delegation of BJP leaders on Friday that there was no change in the party’s stand on Telangana and that it was only opposing the way the Congress was going about dividing the State without building consensus. This appears to have upset the TDP leadership’s political calculations.

It is believed to be worried that if it goes with the BJP now it may have negative impact in Seemandhra region.

At the same meeting the State BJP president, G. Kishan Reddy, drove home the point that the top leaders’ statements were causing confusion and that they need to clarify the party’s position.

Kishan Reddy’s take

Mr. Reddy told The Hindu later that Ms. Sushma Swaraj had told him that she was only opposed to the way the Bill was introduced and not to separate Telangana.

Asked whether BJP would go back on Telangana if its amendments on Seemandhra’s interests were not conceded, Mr. Reddy said his party’s national leaders had made it amply clear about its support to the Bill even if the amendments were not carried, as it had happened in the case of other Bills including the one on Food Security. It would bring in the amendments once it came to power, he said quoting Ms. Swaraj.